Gerardine L. (Gerry) DeSanctis (January 5, 1954 – August 16, 2005) was an American organizational theorist and information systems researcher and Thomas F. Keller Professor of Business Administration at Duke University, known for her work on group decision support systems[1] and automated decision support[2] DeSanctis received degrees in psychology, a bachelor's from Villanova University and master's from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
In 1982, she was granted a doctorate in management, with a focus on organizational behavior and information systems, from the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.
In 2007 the Organizational Communication & Information Systems (OCIS) has initiated the Gerardine DeSanctis Dissertation Award 2007.
DeSanctis and Poole proposed an "adaptive structuration theory" with respect to the emergence and use of group decision support systems.
[7] This theory of technology which are not defined or claimed by a proponent, but are used by authors in describing existing literature, in contrast to their own or as a review of the field.